Wings and Fire
by SHGreen
Summary: When Katniss and Peeta return to 12, both are struggling to deal with the losses of their past. Can they protect each other, like they swore they would, or is it already too late for them? Everlark— extended mockingjay ending.
1. Chapter 1

**Hi! This is how I imagine Katniss, Haymitch, and Peeta's return to District 12. Thank you so much to everyone that has read this story! A special thank you to those of you that have left reviews! You have no idea how much your reviews mean to me and how encouraging they are.**

**Trigger Warning: Topics of Suicide/ Drugs. My story begins after Katniss has shot Coin and been exiled to District 12. It continues with Suzanne Collins depiction of Katniss as dealing with suicidal thoughts and struggling to cope with her loss.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own rights to any of the Hunger Games stories or characters.**

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I enter my home in Victors Village and stand in my kitchen doorway. Everything is still in its exact place from when I visited after the bombing. The only new addition is the layer of dust that has begun to settle on every surface.

I find myself sitting at the table staring at the glowing embers of the fire. I don't remember settling myself here, but I don't leave.

I do nothing. I barely move from my spot at the table. I only rise to meander momentarily to the bathroom and then return to my chair in the kitchen. When I do sleep, it's here, at the table, or sitting on the stones in front of the fire. I never visit the study, where I drank tea with Snow, and he promised to destroy everything I held dear. I can't enter my mother or Prim's rooms, empty and silent, haunted with the echoes of the life we had. I even avoid my bedroom, where Peeta promised to stay with me always. The house is too painful, with too many empty memories. I gaze absently into the fire for hours upon hours. Haymitch does not visit.

Greasy Sae feeds me regularly, but I only eat enough to stop her complaining while she's present. Never enough to give me strength or add weight to my diminished frame. I can't stand to waste the food, but I have no appetite. No hunger for food. No will to survive.

My days are dark and I lose myself often. Lost in the tiny morphling pills I use to fight off my misery and pain. The pills sent home with me from the Capitol in a tiny bottle. I only take the morphling though, ignoring all the other bottles of unknown pills for unknown diagnoses, but I can't turn my back on the morphling. It's the only thing that dulls my pain and eases my hours of surviving into days and eventually weeks. When the pills begin to run out Greasy Sae brings me a box from the mail with my refills sent to me by Dr. Aurelius. But with each new bottle the pills become smaller. I combat their reduction in size by often taking two or three instead of the single dose prescribed.

Often, I wonder why I'm still here, why I haven't ended my life as I swore I would the first chance I got. But some strange feeling, almost as though I'm waiting for something, holds me here.

My thoughts and actions are unlinked. I no longer know hours from days, days from weeks. I spend much of my time sleeping, only to be woken constantly by nightmares. My thoughts are foggy, unfocused. Large gaps of time seem to be unaccounted for. But even if I could remember them, they would be empty and void of anything, because I no longer have anyone or anything.

Slowly, I begin to realize, I am going mad. Losing your mind is a funny thing. You don't notice at first that anything is wrong. You can't see that your thoughts are amiss. But occasionally you are gifted with a brief moment of clarity. And in those moments, you realize that something is not right. You notice that thoughts and movements aren't like they once were, time vanishes and reappears inexplicably, and your visions and nightmares are so real you start to confuse if they are imagination or reality.

"My name is Katniss Everdeen. My home is District 12. It was burned to the ground. President Coin killed Prim. I killed President Coin. I have been exiled to District 12. I am alone." I repeat slowly and quietly under my breath.

One thing I know, other than my name, my district, and which President I chose to murder, is that I will never love anyone again. At 11, I learned a valuable lesson. When I lost my father to the mines and my mother to depression, I learned how dangerous love is. It causes you to do crazy things. It seems like such a beautiful thing when they're here, but when they're gone a piece of your life, of your heart, is missing forever. Sometimes that kind of loss does irreparable damage.

After my father's death, the only person I truly let myself love again was Prim and without her I'm broken- only a shell of my former self. Never again will I be able to love someone. It's too vulnerable, too weak.

Suddenly I'm remembering Snows words to me.

"_Mrs. Everdeen, it's the things we love the most that destroy us." _As much as I hate to admit it, he was right. But I won't ever make that mistake again.

Soon, Haymitch's words come floating back to me while Finnick told all of the Capitol's secrets— Snow's secrets— as a distraction during the rescue of Peeta, Annie, Johanna, and Enobaria,

"_My mother and younger brother. My girl. They were all dead two weeks after I was crowned victor. Snow had no one to use against me" _

And I'm thinking of Joanna in the clock arena.

"_They can't hurt me. I'm not like the rest of you. There's no one left I love."_

That's the trick. Not to love. Because without it, no one can control you. No one can use you. No one can break you.

I will never let myself become this weak person again. Because I might just not survive it next time— actually, that's assuming I survive it this time.

My madness is fueled by my pain, and there is no reprieve from the pain. It is constant, unceasing—except when I have my morphling pills. It grips my mind continuously during my waking hours and surfaces as tormenting nightmares as I sleep.

But the worst part is not the nightmares. It's the dreams. The dreams I don't deserve. The glorious dreams of giving Prim, Lady the goat, of dancing in our house as my father sings, of collecting dandelions in the meadow. It's the dreams that are so vivid that I think she is still here and when I wake, I find my house empty. With a terrible overwhelming pang of realization, I know that she is lost forever. Never again will we dance, sing, laugh, or talk.

And, so I take more pills. But far too soon, the bottle of morphling has run out, with my refill not expected for weeks. Once again, I'm fighting the tremors of withdrawals. The same shakes that brought me to my knees, crawling across the carpeted floor, desperately hunting my morphling pills during my solitary confinement in 13.

But as my mind begins to clear and my thoughts begin to untangle, I am overcome by my pain and unbearable misery at being entirely alone— at my unspeakable loss.

Without truly making up my mind to do so— really without a single thought— I am at Haymitch's door, trying to find solace. I let myself in and find him spread out on the couch, surrounded by plates of unwashed dishes with half eaten food, piles of filthy laundry, and several white liquor bottles. He's passed out drunk with a ratty blanket pulled over his feet and shins. The tv flickers and murmurs softly from the other side of the room.

I take one of his half-empty liquor bottles and settle myself on the floor, away from Haymitch. I tell myself only small swigs. I don't want to spend my morning throwing it all up like I did after hearing the Quarter Quell's reading of the card.

Each tiny swallow burns my throat and creates fire inside me. Slowly, after several swigs my misery eases and though it's only mid-day, my eyelids fill heavy with exhaustion. I don't make any effort to leave though. I just rest my head against the wall and doze sitting up on the floor.

When I wake, it's to a gruff voice and a foot nudging me in the leg.

"Morning, Sweetheart," says Haymitch loudly, giving me a second not-so-gentle kick.

I look up at him blearily. One eye open and the other tightly closed against the start of a headache behind it. The room has grown dark around me as I slept, but the flickering light of the tv illuminates my mentor standing above me.

"You look dreadful," he says eyeing me.

"Thanks. You don't look so lovely yourself." I say. My words come out a rasping whisper from weeks of speaking to no one.

"What do you think you're doing?" Haymitch asks while accusatorially eyeing the bottle still locked in my hand.

"Came by for a drink," I say with a halfhearted shrug. Trying to make the gesture look as though the drink is of no real importance. Haymitch, who always seems to know me better than anyone else, eyes me with knowing eyes and there is something like pity there. Well, I'm not here for his pity. I'm here for the liquor. I stand up abruptly. I must have slept for a while because my balance is better than I expected after the swigs of burning alcohol.

I make my way towards the door through the dark, cluttered room, still carrying the bottle from Haymitch.

"You don't want to go down this road." Haymitch says abruptly as I reach the door. His voice has softened. No longer accusatory. "Don't fight off your demons with the drink. You might just never find yourself again."

"I don't want to find myself." I say back. It comes out more angry than I mean for it too. More hostile. "I want to forget all of it."

Haymitch gives a sad half smile. Not a real one- but an empty, knowing smile.

I begin to leave carrying the bottle with me, but Haymitch calls after me in a bark "Leave the bottle."

"Fine," I say angrily, stopping at the door to drop the bottle, "But I'll be back tomorrow then."

"Sweetheart," and suddenly it doesn't sound so condescending, "It's not worth all that you'll lose" He says softly.

"I have nothing to lose." And I disappear into the night.

For the next few weeks, it becomes our routine. I eat breakfast with Greasy Sae and then wander through the cold to Haymitch for my numbing drink. I try to make it back to my house for dinner with Sae, but often I am too tired and too weak, so I don't leave. She doesn't ever comment on my absence the next morning, but she often eyes me with concern, wondering where I've been.

At first, Haymitch objects and doesn't appreciate my company.

"I bought these for me. Not to share with annoying house guests." He growls at me. But I don't care. I'm used to Haymitch's snide remarks and grumbling comments. Anyways, I bought plenty of bottles for him when stocking up after our first time in the arena.

Between my starved body, my lack of interest in food, and my newness to the bottle, very little liquor is needed before my head is spinning.

We don't talk much. Neither of us wants to discuss what we are trying to erase with the drinks and neither of us has anything else to talk about. So we sit silently, taking swigs from the bottles until one of us falls asleep.

Occasionally, he wakes me from a nightmare— a screaming, flailing terror— by throwing things at me.

"Wake up girl!" He says gruffly as he chunks stinking laundry at me. I jolt awake panting. Trying to identify my surroundings and remind myself that the nightmare is only that. Haymitch lays back down on the couch muttering about not being able to sleep while people are screaming and annoying visitors disturbing him.

All I can think of is the way Peeta used to comfort me through my nightmares. His gentle reassuring warmth. Not that I'd ever want Haymitch to wake me from a nightmare with a hug. No, having dirty shirts thrown at me is much preferable. But it does give me an empty feeling remembering just what I've lost.

Haymitch and I continue being unusual drinking partners every morning and sleeping it off until evening. This routine goes on for a week or two, until one morning, like all the others, when I come to visit. We've sat drinking in silence for a long time when he suddenly pipes up in a drunken murmur.

"You know people still care about you." I catch his eye for a moment before looking away with a disgruntled shrug. "They call me sometimes you know." He says.

"If anyone cared, they'd be here," I say with a harsh snap in my voice. I can feel the anger building up in my chest, in my head.

"They do care," says Haymitch and he sounds annoyed also. "They call here checking on you. Apparently, you won't answer your phone, so they call me." He says and then in a high, mocking voice he continues "How is she, Haymitch? What's she doing, Haymitch? Why won't she answer my calls, Haymitch? Is she alive, Haymitch?"

I'm on my feet holding my liquor bottle out at him like a sword "Shut up! Shut up, Haymitch!" I'm shouting. My face feels hot as the anger builds in my head.

But Haymitch is on his feet now. He's yelling over my shouts, "Your mother calls me! Peeta calls me..."

"Stop it!" I'm yelling and wanting to throw things and curse at him, but instead I run for it, carrying my bottle of white liquor with me. He's yelling after me, but I ignore him. I run back to my house, down to the basement. I climb into the closet under the stairs, pull the door tightly behind me, and curl up behind the water heater. That's where I stay as the tears finally begin to fall. The tears that I've been holding in since I returned home. I'm so hurt and so mad at them for leaving me here alone, at Haymitch for insisting that they still care, and at myself for needing them all so much.

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**Thanks for reading! Please let me know what you think! It is a bit dark for the first several chapters... hang in there We definitely get to the "growing back togehter" part! **


	2. Chapter 2

**Thank you for all the R&R! I love that you all are enjoying it so far!**

**Trigger Warning: My story begins after Katniss has shot Coin and been exiled to District 12. It continues with Suzanne Collins depiction of Katniss as dealing with suicidal thoughts and struggling to cope with her loss.**

**Disclosure: I don't own rights to any of the Hunger Games stories or characters.**

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I don't return to Haymitch. Instead, over the next few days I slowly finish the bottle that I took from his house. After that, I fight tremors and sweats on my own. Willing myself not to break and beg Haymitch for the liquor.

Miraculously, just as my resolve begins to crack and I can't bear the shivering, my re-fill of pills arrive. The pills come along with a box of my things from the capital. My treasured collection of items from my past. I swallow three tiny morphling pills and wait at the table for my mind to once again cloud and my pain to ease.

Sae makes me breakfast and proposes I go hunting. When I tell her I don't have a bow she suggests I check the study where she's placed my box of belongings. But for a long while I don't move from my seat. Just waiting, letting my morphling pills wash their peaceful oblivion over me.

Later that evening, I find myself in the study, not quite remembering choosing to go. I'm looking through my belongings. All that's left to me of my past. My father's hunting jacket, my parents' wedding photo, the spile Haymitch sent in, and the locket Peeta gave me in the clock arena. The two bows and a sheath of arrows Gale brought from 12 the night of the firebombing lay across the desk.

I dig through the box. Checking and re-checking, but it isn't there. Of course it isn't. I must have lost the pearl during the battle at the Capitol. Somehow, losing it feels like losing so much more. Like finally giving up on the old Peeta and everything he meant to me and everything we went through together. Because only once he was lost to me did I realize how much I took his unconditional love for granted.

I slip on my fathers jacket. Warm and comforting. I pick up the locket. The symbol of all the people that needed me— Gale, my mother, Prim. Turns out they didn't need me after all. The locket— Peeta's last gift to me when he was trying to give me a future with my loved ones while giving up his— he was giving me everything. But even he no longer loves or needs me. Forever changed by the Capitol.

I can't bare to open the locket and see all of the lies it holds. I have a strong desire to fling it from myself. But instead, I clutch it to my chest, feeling the cold metal against my fingertips, as I curl up on the couch and fall fast asleep.

But sleep for me is not a peaceful place. Curled in my fathers coat, I lay at the bottom of a deep pit— a grave. My father scoops a shovel full of ashes and pours them over me. Confused, I try to call to him, but the ashes float down into my mouth as I try to speak. As he walks away, more people move forward to shovel ashes over me— dead people. Every dead person that I know by name comes by. The line continues on and on. Every face that haunts me during my waking and sleeping. Every fellow tribute, every prep team, every victor, all my District 12 friends and neighbors, the star squad... every dead person I've ever known comes by to throw ashes on me. I beg and plead for them to stop, but ashes fill my mouth and nose making it hard to breath. I'm choking and gasping but they continue to cover my face until I no longer can see. I struggle for air, panting in the pitch black as the shovel scrapes on and on and on...

I wake with a start. Panting, gasping as I choke out the ashes that are only in my mind. Faint sunlight of early morning shines across the study. Still, half in my nightmare, I hear the continued scraping of the shovel scooping up ashes. I'm running through the dim house, looking for the noise, because now I'm ready to confront the dead.

As I run outside and spot him, I pull up short. Sure that he can't be real. Sure that my nightmare has taken an odd turn and that I must still be dreaming. Because why would he be back?

His face is flushed and sweaty from digging up the overgrown gardens below the window. A wheelbarrows positioned between him and the house.

"You're back," is all I can think to say. Still not completely sure he's there.

Peeta looks up and smiles at me. He looks well. He's thin and covered in burn scars and patchwork skin like me, but his blue eyes have lost the clouded, tortured look that they held in 13. He looks happy, but as he gazes at me his smile falters and a frown creases his brow. I suddenly remember my unchanged clothes, unbathed skin, my fathers over large jacket draped over my bony shoulders. I squeeze the locket tight in my palm, the edges digging into my fingers, as I tuck it deep in my fathers hunting jacket pocket, suddenly feeling overwhelmed and slightly dizzy.

"Dr. Aurelius wouldn't let me leave the Capitol until yesterday," Peeta says eyeing me up and down "By the way, he said to tell you he can't keep pretending he's treating you forever. You have to pick up the phone."

I feel both defensive and embarrassed as he eyes me with concern. I try to push my hair out of my face and find that it has matted into clumps.

"What are you doing?" I say frowning.

"I went to the woods this morning and dug these up. For her," he says, motioning at the wheel barrow where five ugly bushes sit. "I thought we could plant them along the side of the house."

In the wheelbarrow against the wall, sit five scraggly bushes. Shabby leafless brown branches, not yet leafing out for spring, with large clumps of rich dirt clinging to their roots.

For a moment the word rose comes to me and all I can think of is the bombing at 13 when we went above ground to do the propo and there were roses, hundreds of roses, everywhere. I suck in my breath as I feel the panic descend on me and my dizziness worsens.

I open my mouth to yell savage things at Peeta when suddenly the ugly bushes full name comes to me. Not rose, but evening Primrose. The beautiful and delicate yellow flower that my sister was named for.

He watches me expectantly. Obviously wondering what I think.

"Katniss..." he begins, but I only give a tiny nod before fleeing into the house and locking the door behind me.

But now that I've thought of Snow and the roses, I suddenly remember it. Sitting in a vase in my room, waiting for me. Trembling with weakness and anxiety, I run up the stairs. My foot catches on the last step and I crash onto the floor. I force myself to rise and enter my room.

I move into the room and their it is. The rose tucked among the vase of dried flowers. It's long dead, a brittle fragile remnant of the beautiful white rose it once was, but it still holds it's graceful perfection and wafts its faint sweet aroma through the room. I almost gag at the hint of the smell. Suddenly visions are popping before my eyes- President Snow with his puffy lipstick, the toxic smell of roses mingled with blood, the delivery at 13 after the bombing, the rose scented mutts. I gag again, willing myself not to wretch. I snatch the vase of flowers from its place and race to the kitchen.

I throw the contents of the vase into the fire and watch as the flames swallow the rose, leaving no trace that it was ever there. I smash the vase on the floor for good measure.

Someone knocks on the door and rattles the knob that I've just locked. Probably Peeta wondering what the commotion is, but I ignore him.

I go back upstairs and throw open the window to let the terrifying aroma waft outside. But I can still smell it. It's seeped into my skin, my hair, my clothes. I turn on the shower and while I wait for the water to warm I strip my clothes off of me. Great flakes of dried skin the size of my hands clings to my clothes. I climb into the shower, and scrub my body until my skin is raw and red. I'm shaking even though the water is hot on my back. I wash my hair again and again just to be sure all the roses have vanished. I get out and find clean clothes to wear. I'm not sure exactly why, but I take Peeta's locket from my fathers jacket and slip it into my pocket. I then spend half an hour brushing out my matted, tangled hair.

In the kitchen, I feed my clothes to the fire as Greasy Sae unlocks the door and lets herself in for breakfast. Peeta follows in behind her with dirt covered hands.

Greasy Sae steps easily around the shards of broken vase in the floor and moves to the stove to work without comment, but Peeta eyes the shattered glass with concern. He glances at me and catches my gaze. I'm almost embarrassed about the transformation I've made since seeing him in the garden. I turn my back to him as I use a stick to prod the smoldering clothes in the fire, trying to avoid facing him.

When I finally rise again, I find Peeta still watching me. I feel annoyed about his quizzical looks and unfaltering stares.

Suddenly I find, I don't want to hear what he has to say. I don't want to hear comments on my appearance and how it's changed since the garden— or since the fire in the Capitol. I don't want to listen to empty words of condolences. I don't want to hear that he must have really loved me, but that he no longer can. I don't want to know what he thinks of me now— that I'm not that pretty, not remotely nice. Because he's right, I'm a hostile, unlovable creature— I always have been. Only it took him longer to realize it than most.

It's just too painful and I'm too broken. I won't be able to withstand his words. So instead, I do what I've been doing ever since my arrival in 13, I leave. I run from the kitchen and go to the study. I gather my bow and sheath of arrows and slip out the back door as I head for the woods.


	3. Chapter 3

**Heads up— with this update, I alsoadded some stuff that I felt was missing in Chapter 1**

**Thanks for reading! After this chapter we are all caught up with Mockingjay and ready for the new stuff. Thank you so much for reading! **

**Trigger Warning: Suicidal Idiations/ Drugs**

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Going to the woods to postpone Peeta's words was a mistake. It turns out that deserted District 12 is even more unfaceable than those blue eyes. It's my first time leaving the solitude of my home, accept to run next door to Haymitch for white liquor. As I walk through the streets, I see horse drawn carts and masked, gloved men. They are digging up the horrors that have slept peacefully beneath the snow all winter.

I pass Madge's house where Thom, Gale's former crew member, is loading a cart. I turn away, not wanting to see what has become of my kind, brave friend. Carts parked throughout town, at the hobb, the justice building, the bakery. Everywhere I look the dead are being reaped. My fellow 12 citizens, my neighbors, my friends— utterly unrecognizable, are collected and then discarded in a mass grave that had been dug in the meadow. My meadow, my sanctuary, turned into the last resting place for my people.

As I pass the masked, gloved workers reaping the dead, I see many angry, disgruntled faces. For a moment, I imagine that their anger, their hatred, is directed at me, but I know better. I understand how they feel. The destruction, the deaths, were so senseless and heartless. This was the Capitol. All of it. They caged us behind fences like animals and when we refused to behave the way they wanted, they slaughtered us all. Men, women, and children— entire families that had worked every day of their lives just to survive the starvation of 12, gone in one cruel action.

I have to get away from this devastation.

I quickly pass the meadow and head under the fence further down the road. Already, I am mentally and physically fatigued, but I can't return home, when I've only just left. I'm cowardly avoiding the words that I know eventually will need to be said, the apologies that I have never offered.

I head into the woods and make it to mine and Gale's old meeting place. As I sit on the rock, waiting for my hunting partner who I know will never come, I feel more alone than ever.

I reach into my pocket and pull out the locket that Peeta gave me in the clock arena. I rub my fingers gently across the cold gold medallion as I finger the mockingjay imprinted on the front. I stare at it for a long time thinking of everything the locket meant to me.

For a long time, I rest on our rock, silently waiting for the woods to come alive, as I absentmindedly run the locket through my fingers.

The first creatures to ignore my presence are the mockingjays. They begin singing soft, beautiful songs through the woods. They call to one another, trilling each other's tunes, becoming a chorus of beautiful overlapping melodies. As the mockingjays begin to sing, the rest of the woods come out of hiding, as though the birds song was the cue of safety that they had been waiting for.

Just as Rue's four note mockingjay song meant she was safe.

Other birds begins to swoop overhead. Chipmunks skitter through the grass and leaves. Squirrels scamper and play in the tree branches above. I just watch them. Peacefully we coexist here in my woods. For the first time since coming back to District 12, I begin to feel like I am truly home.

When finally a deer comes slowly meandering through the clearing, I draw back an arrow in my bow. The deer freezes, spooked by my sudden movement, but I do not let it fly. Instead, I watch in astonishment as the arrow shivers in my quaking fingers. My hands, always so steady and certain, shake wildly now. The deer bounds away, back into the undergrowth, as I lower my bow, staring in horror as my hands twitch and shudder uncontrollably.

I find myself sitting on my rock, head in my hands. Even this— hunting— the Capitol has taken from me. The one thing that was my own, that was me. The only thing that has always been completely out of their control. Without it, I'm not sure who I am exactly. Beyond anything else that has happened to me, this thought possibly frightens me the most.

When I decide to return home, I barely make it to the woods edge before I collapse with exhaustion. I'm so sick and tired that I have to ask Thom for a ride home in one of the dead people's horse drawn carts.

Thom helps lift me gently into the cart and walks alongside it, leading the horses. He tries to make forced small talk, asking about Gale, but I don't feel much like talking. My head is spinning and I feel dizzy. He stops asking me questions abruptly, watching me with unease.

"Look it's, Katniss!" Yells someone with a mask as they unload their cart. "Thom, has the fire queen demanded a ride in her royal carriage?" He calls. I'm surprised by the harsh tone and cruel words.

"Oh yeah! The rebel killer!" Hollers someone else from another cart. _Rebel killer?_

"Ignore them," says Thom quickly under his voice as he urges the horses to increase their pace. He's jogging now to keep up. Angry voices continue to yell after us, but I can't make out their words over the thunderous clatter of the horse's hoofs on the cobble stone path and the squeaking, jostling of the cart as it bounces along after them.

As we near Victors Village Thom slows the horses. His breathing is fast from running to keep up with the cart

"What did they mean, Thom?" I ask, but I think I already know.

"Well..." says Thom, both winded and obviously stalling for time, "They don't really understand... I mean nobody really gets it... why you'd kill President Coin."

"Well, what do you think?" I demand of him. I'm still weak, but the adrenaline suddenly pumping through me has driven my fatigue away and replaced it by a sudden pounding in my ears.

"Well... I have to say... I don't quite understand it myself." Thom hurries on, " I mean, after everything the Capitol put all of us through, put you through, I can't see why you'd help them... But I can't figure why else you'd kill President Coin."

So many things are running through my head. She tried to have me killed by sending Peeta— broken, unhinged Peeta— into battle. She killed my sister— my kind, beautiful, wonderful little sister. She was going to continue the games. She planned to rule with an iron fist and nothing could come between her and power. She was not an improvement over Snow— she was Snow, just a shiny new District 13 version of Snow. Things weren't going to improve under her. She was too smart for that. Instead, she was going to sweep into Snow's position and use the same disgusting tactics from his playbook. She was pure evil and she had to be stopped.

But I sit there stunned. Not knowing how to answer, because my words have never formed gracefully.

Coin used me. I was the Mockingjay— powerful and defiant— until I was broken and destroyed. I'd given everything, _everything_, to the cause— and then I was discarded as though I was never of any real importance to begin with. Coin broke me. She knew my weaknesses and she targeted them all, one by one.

"She deserved it," I say in a low growl under my breath.

"What?"

"She deserved it!" I'm so angry now that I'm yelling and my voice begins to shake "I was only a pawn— a piece in her games. A puppet to get what she wanted and then she planned to silence me." Thom is looking nervous now and seems to be regretting bringing up the subject. For the first time in months a smile plays across my lips. "Well, I got to her first!" I say with a sneer.

With that, I'm out of the cart and headed into my dark, empty house. Thom does not follow me. He's frozen to his place in the street beside his horse cart. When I get inside, I collapse into the floor. My adrenaline eases and once again I'm exhausted. Breathing hard and willing myself not to vomit, I lay there on my back on the cold tiles of the kitchen floor.

Of course the rebels hate me. In the moment that we'd finally won, I shot their president dead on live television. It's funny, I never thought about their reaction. I didn't realize how it looked to all the districts that didn't really know Coin. They had sacrificed everything to make her their leader and in one fail swoop I chose to assassinate Coin instead of Snow.

It's all well and good for the Capitol and all of the other districts to banish me to 12– out of sight, out of mind. But not for 12. Every time I walk the streets, I'm a constant reminder of the atrocity I did against the rebel's cause.

I should have expected this. I should have anticipated their anger. But truly, I was surprised by their raging comments. Completely off balanced by their hatred.

I force myself to get up. But I don't want to see anyone else today or tomorrow or ever again. I grab my bottle of morphling pills off the kitchen table and pour a dozen into my hand. I throw back three in rapid succession before slipping down to the basement and sneaking into my closet under the stairs. I carefully tuck the rest of my precious pills into my pocket, as I curl up in my new hiding spot against the comforting, warmth of the water heater. I stay there. I plan to never come out again.

The following morning when someone is calling me for breakfast, I don't go. I can't face them. Greasy Sae wanders through the house for a while yelling that the eggs are ready, but I don't come out and she doesn't find me. Eventually, I guess, she leaves because the house is quiet again for a long time. I doze in and out of sleep.

I have an odd dream that Peeta is with me. Curled beside me in my bed, whispering softly, comforting words that I can't quite make out. He gently runs his hands through my hair and I breath softly, smiling, as I settle even deeper against his body. His warmth protecting me through my nightmares and anguish, but when I wake I'm alone, in the dark, with only the slight warmth of the hot water heater to comfort me.

After a moment I realize that what woke me from my peaceful dream was the sound of voices. Men's voices. I'm sure Peeta or Haymitch has come looking for me.

"Katniss? You here Katniss?"

But I don't leave the safety of my hiding place. I stay there, occasionally taking a few morphling pills and ignoring my hunger. The morphling eases my mind and allows me to spend much of my time sleeping. Forget District 12, forget food, forget pain, forget loneliness.

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**As always, I'd love to hear what you think. Leave me a review and let me know what you are loving and what you hate! I love hearing your opinions. **


	4. Chapter 4

**Thank you for reviewing! All of your love has meant the world to me! Definitely let me know what you think about this one!**

**Trigger Warning: Suicide/Drugs**

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I'm climbing a tree rapidly as I hear voices approaching. My bow is slung over my back as I nimbly climb. I reach a safe distance high above the forest floor as I begin to see the group of people owning the voices that I am running from.

The career pack circles the tree below me calling to me. But I can't make out faces as they circle the tree— only Peeta. Peeta with his shockingly blue eyes staring deadly into mine. No smile, no happiness at seeing me. He continues to circle the tree. His eyes piercing me and he calls to me.

"Katniss, come on down" but I don't move. Frozen. Rooted to my spot in the tree. I try to call back, but I have no voice. No words.

The pack walks slowly, steadily around the tree. In perfect rhythm with the person in front of them. Circling, continuously far below.

Suddenly, with one swift uniform movement that startles me and makes my blood run cold, they all look up at me. No, not the career pack. Faces of the ones I lost. Finnick, Prim with her shirt making a delicate duck tail behind her, Cinna, my father, Rue walking on the tips of her toes, arms slightly apart— ready to take flight. The more they circle the more faces are added to the circling pack. The morphlings, Darius, Mags, Bogs. They all stare piercingly at me, never dropping their gaze, never blinking. My chest tightens painfully as I watch them. Their stares are accusing, angry.

The song starts in Peeta. No change of expression, eyes locked on mine as he circles.

"_Are you, are you_

_Coming to the tree_

_Where they strung up a man_

_They say murdered three."_

The rest of the faces— the faces of my friends, my loved ones— chime in to the chorus with Peeta. An eerie, haunting, echoing chorus.

"_Strange things did happen here_

_No stranger would it be_

_If we met at midnight_

_In the hanging tree.." _

Suddenly, there's the tolling of a bell. Slow and melodic bongs that continue on and on. One, two, three. And I look at the tree I'm standing in. It is charred and blackened as though it has been burned. Four, five, six. I look down at the ground and I can see Beetee suddenly. He's standing apart from the circling, singing group and is tying a rope to the bottom branch. A noose.

"_Are you, are you_

_Coming to the tree_

_Where the dead man called out_

_For his love to flee_"

Choruses the circling group below.

And I suddenly recognize this tree. I know the lightning is coming. We've reached midnight and the bell tolls the time. I'm yelling for my loved ones to flee but I have no voice. No noise escapes me. Seven, Eight, Nine. I'm climbing down, out of the lightning tree as quickly as I can.

"_Strange things did happen here_

_No stranger would it be_

_If we met at midnight_

_In the hanging tree."_

I reach the bottom branch and leap to the ground. I'm trying to get my loved ones to run- to flee with me, but they've grabbed me and are pulling me back towards the tree, towards the noose that Beetee has hung. I'm struggling and fighting trying to scream with my silent voice, but there are too many of them.

"_Are you, are you_

_Coming to the tree_

_Where I told you to run,_

_So we'd both be free."_

They sing as they hoist me into the tree and wrap the noose around my throat, not made of rope as I'd originally thought, but BeeTees coiled wire. Ten, Eleven, Twelve. I'm gasping for air as the metal noose tightens around my throat and my loved ones step back and for the first time they are smiling, leering. I see a sudden flash of blinding white light as the lightning surrounds me.

I suddenly jolt awake. Wide eyed, shocked. As I'm waking I'm aware the song continues. Echoing hauntingly through the empty basement.

"_Strange things did happen here_

_No stranger would it be_

_If we met at midnight..."_

Suddenly I realize the words, the song, is coming from me in a harsh panting chorus. The moment I realize the words are mine, they die in my throat. The song cut abruptly short. I sit there panting. Trying to catch my breath as fear washes over me. I rub my neck with both hands., filling where the cold metal noose had cut into me. But no marks remain. It was all just a vivid, terrifying nightmare.

Gasping, winded, I frantically climb out of the suddenly claustrophobic closet, but tripping on the doorframe I sprawl on the cold, hard concrete floor. I lay there, swallowing lung fulls of cold, damp basement air. Shaking. The lines of the hanging tree song still running threw my mind

_Strange things did happen here_

_No stranger would it be_

_If we met at midnight_

_In the hanging tree. _

After a long time of deep breathing the musty air, when my heart has finally begun to slow, I reach into my pocket for my morphling pills, but there aren't any there. Had I really taken them all?

Still badly shaken from my nightmare, I climb up off the floor, and take the creaky, wooden steps out of the basement. I climb through the door and tip-toe across the kitchen to the dining room table. Just as I reach my spot at the table where all of my pill bottles sit, a voice cuts through the darkness making me jump like I'd been shot.

"You decide to stop hiding, Sweetheart," and the kitchen light flicks on. I whirl around to find Haymitch standing by the light switch wearing a nasty smile. He must have been sitting in the dark living room waiting for me.

Breathing just as heavily as when I woke from my dream, I spit back at him.

"What are you doing here?"

"Oh... well... seems no one could find you today. Apparently, you just vanished after Peeta and Sae came by for breakfast yesterday and nobodies seen you since." Haymitch looks very annoyed, but I don't care. I don't owe anything to any of them. I turn away from him and quietly start digging through the pill bottles.

"Glad to see you've finally washed your hair," Haymitch says. "You were getting so unbearable, even I couldn't stand you."

I feel a slight twinge of annoyance and embarrassment, but I ignore his words and continue to look for my morphling pills. I've checked and re-checked all of them before I realize the morphling is missing. Where are they? I start to look under the table, anxiety building inside my stomach, when Haymitch says gruffly.

"Looking for something?" I whip around to see him holding the tiny bottle of morphling and wearing a smirk. "I knew you wouldn't be able to stay hidden very long without these babies."

I put out my hand for the bottle but Haymitch doesn't relinquish it. His brows knit together and he frowns hard at me.

"How many you getting through nowadays?"

"Give it to me, Haymitch," I say with as much venom as I can muster. He only gives a harsh bark of a laugh.

"I'll make you a deal," he says walking slowly towards me in the kitchen, holding the bottle tightly in one hand "You hide from me again when you hear me calling, I pour the entire thing down the drain." I can feel my lips form a hard line as my annoyance at Haymitch grows. Really? Indefinitely drunk Haymitch is going to give _me_ a hard time about the pills? "Deal?" He says as he bends down slightly so we are now eye to eye. He's so close to my face now I can smell the stale liquor on his breath, but I don't look away. Glaring hard at him, I give a sharp nod.

"Say it," he hisses at me cocking his head slightly to the side and giving the bottle a little rattling shake. I'm so angry, that I have a strong urge to spit right in his nasty face, but since he is still holding the pills that I desperately need, I refrain.

"Deal." I say as coldly as I can. Haymitch gives a chuckle as he tosses the bottle to me.

I catch the tiny pill bottle, and with shaking hands pry the lid off. I swallow two pills dry before dropping down into the chair at the table.

"You want to tell me why you're hiding?" He asks taking a seat at the table as well.

"No," I say closing my eyes. Trying to block out the visions of my neighbors yelling hate filled words, and all the other terrible things I've been running from since I reached 12.

"Your hiding from him aren't you?" I look up at Haymitch confused. "Peeta," he says exasperated, like it should have been obvious.

"No," I say unconvincingly.

"Seriously, you need to talk to him. After everything you two have been through... there's no use hiding."

"I'm just not ready yet." I say quietly.

"Well, I've got to tell him something," Haymitch says impatiently, "Right now for all he knows, you're lying dead in the woods somewhere. He's been crazy looking for you."

"Tell him to give me a few days. Just a few," I say, "I'll come by and see him when I'm ready." Haymitch looks at me like I've disappointed him somehow.

"Fine, I'll tell him," he says as he rises from the table.

He opens the door to leave. Even with my back to him I can feel the cold night breeze blow through the kitchen. He stops frozen for a moment on the threshold.

"You know he came back for you don't you."

"I don't know what he came back for," I say quietly, "But it wasn't for me." Haymitch gives a frustrated growl, and slams the door behind him. I breath a sigh of relief to finally be alone again.

After a moment of sitting at the table, I decide to go back to my closet to see if I can sleep a bit longer. I grab the morphling and head for the basement.

Once again I curl up in my closet, humming softly, consolingly to myself. But after a moment of laying there I realize I'm humming the simple melody of the hanging tree. As the lines of the song begins repeating through my mind again, I abruptly sit up and take two more morphling pills. Finally, finally, my emotions dissipate and I fall back into an emotionless half-sleep fog.

The day that follows is an exhausted one. I hide in my closet until Greasy Sae leaves, but after repeatedly making myself stop humming the hanging tree, I'm forced to get up and leave my secret hiding place. Desperate to think of something else, anything else. I stop by the kitchen on my way upstairs and pick through a plate of eggs on the counter for a moment. After trying to force myself to take a few bites, and deciding I really don't want any, I head upstairs to take a shower. I sit on the floor of the shower with my knees pulled up to my chest as the warm water runs down my body. I sit there for so long that the water slowly begins to go cold.

Suddenly, I catch myself again singing the hanging tree song.

"_Are you, are you _

_coming to the tree?" _

The song had become firmly lodged in my mind.

Over and over it ran through my thoughts that day. The more I tried not to think of the song the more incessantly it ran through my head. I caught myself singing the tune constantly, while showering, while eating, while laying on the couch in the study, while crouched hiding in the closet under the stairs. An all consuming repetitive chorus of my loved ones calling me to join them.

By lunch on the following day, after a sleepless night of obsessively singing the hanging tree and several more morphling pills, I had to get out of the house. I plan to dodge what used to be the Merchant Section and the Seam, to avoid the callous words of my neighbors. I dress and leave. Still quietly singing under my breath as I slowly wander the deserted streets on the outskirts of town.

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**Sorry about all the angst! Just trying to get into Katniss's mind a bit. Don't worry, we are headed toward some Everlark goodness soon!**

**Love it? Hate it? Seriously let me know. I love the critiques, both good and bad. You guys have been so awesome! Review away! **


	5. Chapter 5

**Wow you guys! I can't believe all of the alerts and reviews. Thank you for all of the love!**

**Trigger Warning: Suicide/Drugs**

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The road is silent and abandoned. It once was a constant bustle of coal blackened men coming to and from the mines, but since the firebombing, the mines have been shut down and this road no longer necessary. Just another vacant trail leading to nowhere of importance.

I stand silently on the gravel, clenching in my hands the rope barring entrance to the coal mines. It is there to deter trespassers and warn of the dangers of the abandoned shaft. But beyond the rope— the exact rope that refrained my mother, Prim and I the day my father died— I can see the entrance.

I know, just like every miner from the Seam knows that since the firebombs that destroyed District 12, the mines are no longer safe. Tunnels collapsed, ventilation obstructed, filled with the toxic fumes that only the lemon yellow canary could warn against. It was miraculous really that the entrance was still unobstructed and that the entire mine hadn't collapsed in on itself. But here I stand staring at the burned entrance— damaged, but still accessible.

I don't know how long I stand there, gazing transfixed at the mines. Surely hours because the slow darkness of evening begins to settle across District 12 as the last blazes of the sun sink down below the horizon, leaving a bright pink and soft muted orange in its descent— Peeta's orange. I pause, momentarily, pulled from my obsession with the mine to stare at the orange, thinking of Peeta and his return to 12. My mind, unfocused and confused, fumbles through my thoughts of Peeta and guilt begins to descend on me. But suddenly, I give my head a little shake. This is not about Peeta.

I stand in the same place where Prim and I found my mother the day of the accident.

For a moment, I am 11 again, clinging to my mother and Prim. With every opening of the mine shaft elevator I silently beg for my father to appear. My mother standing pale and stiff, waiting behind the rope for word of my father. But he does not appear. After hours and hours of waiting, I learn that the only thing left in the world for me is Prim and my mother.

But I am not 11. I do not have Prim and my mother. I have nothing and nobody.

This is the exact spot that we learned that our family of four no longer existed. The very place that my mother stood in the moment that her entire world shattered. And now at last I understand. I hated her for her weakness. And now I hate me for mine.

Because in truth, this was the end of our happiness. This is where our struggle began and the next seven years were a constant battle to survive. How fitting for the end of my struggle to be in the same place where it all began. How suiting for my father and I to share the same fate in the depths of the mines.

And I'm again singing the song he taught me. The song that has haunted my waking and sleeping for days. The song that we used to sing together.

"_Are you, are you_

_Coming to the tree_

_Wear a necklace of rope,_

_Side by side with me."_

They won't find me, no one ever will, because no one would think to look for a mockingjay in an abandoned mine. But I am no longer a mockingjay. I am a fire mutt, ready to sleep among the coals.

And now, I'm sitting on the very edge of the mine shaft, looking at the metal ladder that descends into the black belly of the mine, there in case the elevator was unusable, like it is now. I'm not sure how I got to the edge or when I ducked under the rope. All my thoughts and memories are choppy and unstrung now.

"_Strange things did happen here_

_No stranger would it be_

_If we met at midnight_

_In the hanging tree."_

My song echoes back to me from the depths of the mine, like a chorus of people singing it's haunting lyrics from the dark below. For a moment, I imagine my father standing at the bottom of the ladder, out of sight in the darkness, singing it along with me from the mine's depths.

And I'm willing myself to go down. Telling myself it would even be a peaceful way to go. Slowly slipping away, quietly falling asleep in the dark. But as I'm grabbing the ladder, I'm transfixed with fear. My fear of the mines that were my father's tomb. Fear of being underground as I've always hated. Fear of leaving this destroyed world behind.

And I'm looking down the ladder and seeing myself looking down another ladder on a different day and Gale yelling "Climb!" And I'm pleading that someone's still alive. And I'm peering into the gloom watching Finnick, wonderful Finnick, in his last moments fighting the mutts.

I throw myself back from the mines and my horrifying visions. Suddenly I'm hurling rocks and boards, anything that I can reach and I'm screaming in rage and ripping my hair. All the rage that I've felt since being left here, alone, in District 12. All the anger for the life's that were lost— the life's I lost. Prim. Anger with myself for not letting myself quietly slip away, because it would be the kindest thing to do— but I've never been motivated by kindness.

Suddenly, someone is yelling my name and running along the gravel road. In my fit of rage, I'm screaming and still trying to break things, jerking hard at the ropes guarding the mines, throwing anything I can reach, but there is nothing breakable, nothing fragile here— only me.

"Katniss, Katniss!" He is loud, trying to break through my anger, my insanity. He grabs me and he's trying to drag me away from the mines edge and pull me to him. "Katniss, stop! It's ok!"

I'm fighting him off. Struggling hard to throw more things. Peeta lets me go, but he's standing between me and the open mine shaft. He's watching my movements and I know that he knows why I'm here. But I don't try to run past him. I don't try to dart to the mine. Because I know I can't climb peacefully down to the bottom like I hoped I would. And I can't jump, because people don't have wings, but Peeta was right all along. Mockingjays can't survive without wings.

I collapse to my knees on the coal dusted gravel, shaking as the tears begin to fall. My anger breaks as heavy— heartbreaking sobs wash over me. He's beside me holding my arm gently, but I don't pull away.

He's whispers soothing comforting words and runs his hands over my hair. I put my face in my hands and completely fall apart. But here there are no doctors with sedatives when you lose your mind. Here they don't drug you and strap you to a hospital bed until you are willing to be sane. Here I battle my mind and my memories, shaking with sobs, while Peeta holds me.

When I finally start to calm, I pull myself up, and begin angrily pushing my damp hair out of my face. My weakness is infuriating. I can't stand this broken me that has replaced the girl that refused to cry as she volunteered to die for her sister. I hate this vulnerable girl that I've become, but I don't seem to have a say in who I am anymore.

I'm shaking my head, so frustrated, so angry with myself. I had been so certain that I wasn't going home today. So ready. But I couldn't do it. Once again, Peeta has saved me when I was unsavable. Not worth saving. Just like the day on the veranda, when I chose to shoot President Coin instead of Snow and he was there, eyes locked on mine, blood running down the back of his hand as the nightlock was torn from my sleeve and crushed on the ground.

Suddenly, I'm thinking of another time. Thinking of the locket and how he begged me to live during the Quarter Quell, even when I had already chosen to die. Without realizing what I'm doing, I slip the locket out of my pocket and I'm staring at it in my hands.

"I can't do it," I say softly, my voice cracked and high, revealing more of my pain then I would like.

"You can't do what, Katniss?" He asks softly, placing his hand over my hand clutching the locket, momentarily hiding it from my view.

I don't know how to answer. Live? Die?

Because I know I can't continue on living like this, floating between my pain and a sedated land of morphling and white liquor. But I also know, that I can't just leave this world behind. Because as cruel as it was for her to say it to Peeta the day of the reaping, his mother was right. I'm a survivor.

Suddenly, Peeta grips both of my arms firmly in his large hands, not hurting me exactly, but enough to startle me by his abrupt change. For a moment I think he's snapped again— in one of his flashback rages. But when he speaks, even though his voice sounds shaky, I can tell he still has a grip on reality.

"Katniss you can't leave me!" I look at him, surprised by his change and he looks upset. Trying to control himself, "Please don't do this to me. We are going to survive this, just don't give up". Survive. Survivor. There's that word again. Yes, surviving, even when I no longer have anything to survive for, is what I do best.

But that's the problem right there. Nothing to survive for. For as long as I can remember I've been taking care of people.

My mother, Prim, Rue, Peeta, Gale. It's the only thing that has kept me going for all these years.

Abruptly, I realize that Peeta knew this about me before I myself really knew my motivation. That's why he tried to convince me during our second games that my family and Gale needed me.

Because he knew, more than anything else, their need for me might convince me to survive. He was almost right. That was my weakest moment in the clock arena— staring at the pictures of my loved ones.

Again, I finger the locket slowly in my hand thinking of the tiny prints hidden inside.

Pictures Peeta used to beg me to survive and now all they do is remind me of my brokenness. No Prim, no mother, no Gale. The three things Peeta begged me to return home to, lost to me. No longer a part of my present or future.

"Nobody needs me," I say softly. "Not anymore," and I hand him the locket. He holds it for a moment, staring at it too. He looks up at me. Eyes intently locked on mine.

"Katniss, I need you" he says, his voice softened, "I always have." My chest tightens painfully and I'm shaking my head again. There he goes saying exactly how he feels— saying things that I don't know how to reply to. Tears burn my eyes again, as they begin to slip gently down my cheeks.

"Peeta, I can't be what you need me to be," I say, sure that he will pull away from me. Certain that it will be like after our first games, when I said everything I did was just to keep us alive, and out of hurt and anger he stopped speaking to me. For months we didn't so much as look at each other, until the Victory Tour when we had to go back to pretending we were madly in love. I look up at him, ready to face the pain that I know will be there, but it isn't. He pulls me to him a little tighter and reaches up to dry my cheek as he says softly.

"I don't need you to be anything, Katniss. I just need you here. I need you to not give up." He pauses for a moment trying to look me in the face, but I just stare at my now empty hands in my lap. He cups my chin gently turning my face to look at him, "All I need is for us to be friends again. Friends that protect each other, because that's what we do,"

I let out a broken, shuddering sob as I breath a deep sigh of relief. All the pressure of letting him down, of not living up to his expectations, of not being able to love him like he deserves, all of those worries, eased by that one word— friends. There's something else their mixed with the relief, maybe confusion— I'm not really sure. All I know is that my confession of no longer being capable of love has not broken his heart. He expected it, probably appreciated it, because we have both been forever changed by the Capitol and love between us is no longer possible.

I lean against him feeling his familiar warmth for the first time in months. He holds me tight resting his cheek against the top of my head.

For a long time we stay there, Peeta holding me through my pain. Soon darkness has completely surrounded us, and the warm spring air has cooled quickly as the sun set. I've just begun to shiver in the biting wind, when he says,

"Katniss, lets get you home." I don't really want to leave— back to my empty, dark house with all of its memories— but we can't stay here all night, especially not in this chill. I let Peeta pull me up to my feet, but I cling tight to his arm as the world around me spins. I close my eyes to the dizziness and focus on putting one foot in front of the other as I allow Peeta to steer me through town.

"Katniss, are you ok?" Says Peeta with concern in his voice after a short distance.

"Fine. Just dizzy," I breath softly. He reaches as though to pick me up, but I object quickly, " No, really, I'm fine." I force myself to open my eyes even though the spinning makes me nauseous. But, as soon as Peeta starts forward again, I close my eyes tightly, willing myself not to stumble or throw up.

But after we've turned onto a few roads, I hear something that makes me stop in my tracks. I open my eyes just a crack and try to make out what's ahead of me through the vertigo. Someone from one of the houses ahead is yelling it. Over and over and over.

"Traitor! Traitor! Traitor!" And I know that the call is for me. The girl that killed their president. The girl that destroyed their hope.

Peeta grips me tighter as he pulls me ahead, steering me nearer to the house, and suddenly more people are coming out of their homes to see the source of the commotion. The come out into the yard and stand in the grass along the road, their silhouettes illuminated by the glowing yellow light from windows and doors. Some of them join in the chanting chorus.

"Traitor! Traitor! Traitor!" My knees weaken and I stumble. Peeta's arm is the only thing that keeps me from crashing into the stones. I try to open my eyes, but my vision is blackened and splotchy and I have a feeling I might blackout.

Peeta suddenly scoops me up and this time I don't object. All I want is to be away from the angry voices, and my legs seem to have stopped working. Peeta clutches me firmly to his chest as he jogs ahead, past the yells. I lean my head into his familiar chest, close my eyes, and let the blackness swallow me up until I can't think or feel anymore.

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**Thank you so so much for the reviews! Please keep it up. I love hearing what you think. **

**I already have the next 3 chapters written... so I'll be updating every few days for a bit. **


	6. Chapter 6

**Thank you so much for reading. I got so many fantastic reviews last chapter. Love you guys!**

When I come to, at first, in my half-sleep, I'm not sure where I am. Eyes still closed, I run my hands over the soft fabric beside me— definitely not the hard, warm stone hearth of the kitchen. Not the cold damp concrete of the basement. More comfortable than anywhere I've slept since my return to 12. Soft and plush— a bed. I breathe in deeply, not the smokey cedar smell of the fire. Not the musty dirty odor of the hot water heater closet. Suddenly, I sit bolt upright. It has to be my imagination. It's not possibly that the rose scent has lingered after all the windows being open.

In the darkness of night, I peer confusedly around my surroundings wondering how I got to this place. But as I look around, I realize, I am indeed in my room. This does not give me any comfort. Instead, I leap up, panicked by being in my bed for the first time since my arrival home. Alone again in this abandoned suffocating home. My breath is caught in my chest as the dread overtakes me.

Suddenly, I'm running out of my room and into the silent, dark hall. My feet pounding as fast and loud as my heart as I fly down the steps and wrench open the door to the basement. I fumble shakily along the wall until I flip on the blinding light of the stairs.

"Katniss?" A voice calls from the dark behind me, startling me. I whip around, hand frozen on the knob. Haymitch must be here to ridicule me about the pills again. _The pills. I desperately need some_. "Katniss, what's wrong?"

But as I watch him walk towards me out of the dark living room, I realize that it isn't Haymitch. It is Peeta. He moves toward me slowly as though concerned he might frighten me. He stops a few feet away, now illuminated by the bright light of the basement shining around the door and my immobile body in the doorway. His blazing blue eyes are watching me with such sadness and concern that I want to look away. I suddenly feel extremely vulnerable and can't help but cross my arms around my middle, digging my fingers painfully into my hips.

"What are you doing here?" I say more harshly than I mean to. My trepidation coming out as anger instead. Peeta takes a step back from my agitation, hands raised in surrender.

"I just wanted to get you home... make sure you were okay." As he says it, as I look into those innocent blue eyes, suddenly all that has happened that night comes racing back to me. The song, the mines, Peeta holding me, the angry neighbors, blacking out... everything. I let go of my hips, one arm catching the doorframe to stabilize myself as the sudden memories make me feel slightly weak at the knees.

He quickly steps forward, and reaches out as if to steady me, but I pull away. My pain and vulnerability masked by my fury.

"Listen I'm fine. I don't need your pity!" I say, my voice rising in embarrassed agitation. Something suddenly crosses his face, like anger or pain, but it is instantly replaced with a look of compassion— too understanding.

"I'm not here because I pity you." He says gently. "I just wanted to make sure you are safe."

"Well, I am." I say too quickly, no longer meeting his eyes. We just stand there for a moment. He peaks around my body and into the brightly lit basement below.

"Where are you going?"

"Nowhere," I say, suddenly pulling the door closed behind me. He pauses again, watching me intently. His brows knitted together with concern.

"Let me help you get back to bed," he says reaching for me.

"NO!" I yell too loudly. It echoes ominously through the empty house before a steely silence falls between us. Slightly ashamed of my sudden outburst, I look away. "No, I don't want to sleep in there." I quietly mumble.

Peeta makes a compulsive moment with his body, as though he had planned to reach out to hold me, but thought better of it.

He looks as though he wants to ask me something. Maybe why I don't want to sleep in my bed. Maybe why I had thought about ending it all at the mines. Maybe why I was being so vicious. But instead he just says.

"Okay, well I guess I'll leave then." But he doesn't move towards the door. He's still standing there watching me intently. He finally says. "Katniss, will you be safe?"

I know what he's asking me, without him really saying it. Am I going to hurt myself the moment he leaves? Am I going to throw it all away as soon as he isn't around to stop me? I can't quite meet his eye as I say softly, "I'll be fine."

He stays frozen for a moment. He seems torn on what he should do next, but finally he says, "Okay, then" and he returns to the dark living room and grabs his coat before heading for the door.

"Goodnight, Katniss. Be safe,"

I want so badly to tell him to stay. I don't want to be here alone. But I can't bring myself to say the words that I'd said before, for fear that his answer might have changed.

_Stay with me. _

—_-_

I find myself once again in my new favorite hiding spot when I wake. It had taken me quite a while to settle back to sleep after Peeta left. For what seemed like hours, I thought of all of the events of the night before. I'm so embarrassed about everything from last night and especially ashamed that I'd fallen apart with Peeta there as witness. How was I ever going to be able to face him again?

I shift myself so I'm sitting up in the dark, tight safety of the closet. My knees pulled up against my chest. My head leaning back against the wall. I feel shaky and weak. I'm not sure if it's from refusing to eat for days or if it's from skipping my pills the previous afternoon— probably both. Either way, I don't feel like moving, but I desperately need to. I close my eyes and slowly breathe in through my nose, out through my mouth. But as I breathe I suddenly notice the musty basement doesn't smell right. I breathe in deeply again and can smell the intoxicating aroma of freshly baked bread.

Instantly, I'm on my feet. _Could he be here? In my house, making bread?_ But as I push the door open, I am met with a small plate and a golden, delicious loaf of fresh bread, sitting on the cold concrete like a gift— no, an offering— for me. I reach out for it and it's still warm in my hands. I give a little sigh as I hug it to me.

He must still be here. I take the small loaf with me. Clinging to its warmth, just like I did all those years ago when he threw me the burnt bread, I head quickly up the stairs. I can hear pots and pans being shuffled around in the kitchen above. I'm not quite sure if I'm glad he's returned to keep me from the stifling silence of this abandoned house or if I'm annoyed that he's back to check up on me again.

But as I exit the basement and peer into the kitchen I realize that Peeta isn't here after all. My heart sinks a little. It's only Greasy Sae busily cracking eggs into a bowl.

She catches sight of me and smiles.

"Been missing seeing you in the morning. Glad you decided to come join me today."

I don't speak. I only give a little nod and move into the kitchen to take a seat at the table and snatch up my morphling pills.

"Eggs will be ready in just a bit," she says as she pours the raw eggs into a pan on the stove top. I don't make any signs of acknowledgement as I pop the lid off my pill bottle. I peer inside. Only four left. I have to close my eyes and breathe hard through my nose to calm my sudden wave of anxiety. Only four left. Four.

I pour two into my hand and slowly put them in my mouth.

"I see you found the bread Peeta left." She calls over the sizzle of the eggs cooking. "I told him he could leave it on the table, but he insisted on bringing it to you instead. Just left about ten minutes before you woke up."

For a moment, I'd forgotten about Peeta's loaf of bread sitting in my lap. I move it carefully to the table. It smells heavenly. It's warm, sweet yeasty smell filling the kitchen and bringing me an oddly peaceful sensation. I'll never quite think of Peeta's bread the same after that day so long ago. Just like the hope that the dandelions bring. Life. The bread means life to me.

I pull off a small piece with my hands and nibble on it. The outside is crisp and golden, while the inside is warm, soft and airy, almost cloud like. I close my eyes and just remember Prims little gasp when I brought home the burnt loaves from Peeta. It both hurts my heart and makes me smile.

But suddenly, I'm not really hungry and I'm wishing I was back in the silence of my hiding place. Alone, while I wait for the morphling to erase my thoughts of Prim and a boy with bread.

"I invited him to stay for breakfast, but he had something to take care of." She says kindly over her shoulder as she pours the eggs onto a plate and lays it on the table in front of me.

"Well Katniss, I'm going to have to run along today." She finally says, standing over me, "my granddaughter is ill at home."

I give another little nod. She touches my shoulder gently, but I don't look up at her.

"Take care, okay. Eat some food before it goes cold." She says and then she's gone.

I wait for a little while at the table, lost in my thoughts, lost once again in time, when I decide I don't want breakfast at all. I want to hide. I'd just gotten up from the table and reached the stairs when a loud knock comes from the front door.

I'm tempted to ignore them, but remembering Haymitch's threat to take my pills if I hide from him, I go to meet the visitor at the door. This time it really is Peeta. He looks almost nervous as he says,

"Hey, Katniss. Sae said I could come by for breakfast. Am I too late?" I look back over my shoulder at the untouched food and give a little shrug. "Do you mind?" He asks softly. I hesitate slightly but then without meeting his eye, say,

"Sure," he looks happy with my consent as he squeezes past me and heads for the table.

He gets extra plates and serves us both eggs and thick slices of the bread.

"Thanks for the bread," I say quietly as I settle myself back at the table.

"Oh, no problem. I thought it might be a good way to wake up."

"How did you know where I was?" I ask. Finally meeting his eye for the first time this morning.

"Oh... well..." he looks a bit embarrassed. "Haymitch said he was pretty sure you were hiding out down there a few days ago when we couldn't find you." He pauses looking abashed but then adds, "He said you used to hide out at 13 quite a bit."

"Oh," is all I can think to say, rather embarrassed myself. I knew Haymitch was going to tell him I was safe and didn't want visitors, but I didn't expect him to tell him I'd been hiding in a closet for days.

Peeta hands me a fork and starts in on his own eggs. I watch him for a moment, not quite realizing I'm doing it.

"Aren't you going to eat?" He finally asks after catching me watching him.

"Umm... I'm not really hungry," I say with a shrug, putting my fork down. Peeta gives me a quick once over and I can feel the way he's taking in my bony frame, thinner than I've ever been. I wrap my arms around myself defensively as I get up from the table.

"Wait, Katniss," he says, grabbing my hip as he gets up too.

"What do you want from me Peeta?" I ask angrily as I spin to meet his gaze.

"I don't want anything. I just want to eat breakfast... with you." He says pleadingly. I'm so angry, but it isn't about the food. It's not sitting with him. It's knowing what happened last night. It's knowing how vulnerable he thinks I am as he finds me hiding in closets and planning on disappearing into the mine. It's him eyeing my thin body as I refuse to eat. It's him wondering if he should stay or go because he thinks I might not make it through the night. And it's how much I needed him and wanted him last night as he held me in the middle of the street. It's how much I need him now, but I don't want to admit it, because I don't want to need him.

"I don't need you Peeta!" I say blazingly, just as much to myself as to him. "I don't need you here making me eat, trying to save me or something!"

He doesn't look angry, but there is hurt in his eyes. When he speaks though his voice is steady and calm.

"In the Quarter Quell you told me you needed me. Real or not real?"

I can feel my shoulders sag. My anger dissipate as quickly as it came. I open my mouth but nothing comes out.

_We are on the stifling hot beach sitting in the warm sand. Peeta is trying desperately to explain that nobody needs him to survive— that I should be the one to win the games. I can't help it— I know deep down I'll never recover if I go home without him this time. I tell him then, right there on the beach, how I feel. _

"_I need you Peeta" I say softly and when he tries to argue I kiss him. Kiss him like I never had before. That fire growing inside of me that I can't explain. The desperate unquenchable desire that keeps building the longer I kiss him, making me forget the games, forget the cameras, forget our imminent death. All I want is more as my hands roam his chest and shoulders, his hands holding low on my back. An unsatisfied burning inside me that just makes me need even more of him. _

I can feel a blush creeping up my face as I think about that last kiss that left me wanting so much more. Without meaning to I glance at his lips before quickly looking away.

"Real," I finally say so softly I'm surprised he could hear me.

He steps closer to me and reaches for my arms. I look up at him sharply. "Do you still need me?" He asks as he takes my hands gently. His anxious blue eyes are locked onto mine, pleading for me to let him in.

I don't answer. I can't answer. Not the question that he has asked. Instead I say.

"You have to stop treating me like I'm going to break at any second."

He smiles a genuine smile that reaches his eyes.

"Yeah, okay. I knew you wouldn't put up with my sympathy for long." He says with a little chuckle. He's so close to me now that I can smell yeast and flour on him. He's watching my eyes, still smiling that satisfied smile, and I can see all of his long blond lashes. For a moment I think he's going to kiss me again and my breath catches in my chest, but then he pulls away, saying,

"How about this? I'll stop acting like your fragile, if you'll actually talk to me."

I have to fight not to roll my eyes and instead give a little nod. He smiles again and retakes his seat at the table, motioning for me to join him. Reluctantly I come sit beside him again.

I expect him to start drilling me. I expect him to ask what on earth has come over me, but instead he starts in on his eggs and we sit in silence.

"Try the eggs." He says after a bit, "Sae did a good job on them."

In spite of myself, I take a few bites, but soon I've gone back to the bread. It's no longer warm but it still smells and tastes amazing. I pull off pieces of the fluffy inside and eat them watching Peeta. Finally I can't stand the silence anymore.

"When are you going to ask me what on earth I was thinking?" I finally say frustrated. Peeta looks up at me very surprised. He puts his fork down and looks at me so intently that I feel as though he's looking into my soul.

"Katniss, I know what you were thinking. Don't you remember? There was a while there that I would have chosen the same route if I could have."

I frown as I consider what he's telling me. But I remember well. On the Star Squad in the Capitol. After Peeta's breakdown when he begged us to kill him, to give him a gun or the nightlock. Yes, he had been there too. He knew my pain. The kind of pain that you'd rather die than continue on feeling every day.

"How did you get over it?" I ask, feeling much too vulnerable again. Picking at the bread instead of meeting his intense gaze.

"Well, I didn't get over it. I still have bad days. Some really bad days, but I'm determined to enjoy the good ones." He pauses, thinking. "I think really what helped the most was keeping busy. I started painting again, baking again. I tried to do things I enjoyed again."

I nod, but I already know I can't do that. I tried hunting a week ago but the shaking wouldn't allow it.

"And I talked to people- you, Delly, Haymitch, the doctors. Once they released me I talked to the squad. That's probably what helped the most. Just being able to talk about it and try to sort it out in my mind."

But I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to think about it. I just want to forget it all. Peeta reaches for my hand and I let him take it.

"Katniss, I'm here when you're ready to talk about it. Okay?" I just nod. My heart hurts so badly. I miss my family. I miss hunting. I miss the strong independent survivor I once was.

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	7. Chapter 7

**Wow! You guys are the best. I got some of the most encouraging reviews ever last chapter. You all have no idea how much I appreciate hearing what you think! **

**Also thank you for the suggestion to add this to AO3– I'll be doing that this week!**

* * *

After breakfast, Peeta collects the dishes and begins washing them in the sink. I can feel my mind beginning to slip away as the morphling finally starts to unravel my thoughts.

As Peeta puts the now clean plates in the cabinet, he finally asks,

"Would you come cook with me today? I'd love the company."

Really, in all honesty, what I want, is to spend the day in the closet savoring my last two morphling pills. But, I can't exactly say I would rather hide in the dark than spend some time with him— and I'm absolutely not mentioning morphling or liquor to him. Peeta watches me while I try to decide how to respond.

"Well... I was planning on... umm... getting some rest. I didn't sleep well last night." Peeta chuckles. "Are you laughing at me?" I snap.

"Well... it's just that you've always been a terrible liar." He laughs. I glare at him. "Come on, Katniss. Just help me for a little bit. I promise I won't make you talk.".

I really don't want to and I have never been one to do things I don't want to do. But something about the way Peeta watches me, begging with those blue eyes stops me from refusing. His eyes look so normal without the confused haze clouding them. He looks like my Peeta again, not the Capitol's mutt Peeta that I left behind in thirteen.

I purse my lips indecisively, but finally give in with a nod. Peeta smiles broadly at me and quickly grabs his coat off of the back of his chair so we can go.

I follow behind him to his house. The morphling has definitely kicked in now. I'm not nearly as out of it as when I take three or four pills, but I can feel its effects nonetheless. My eyelids feel heavy and objects seem to move and shimmer past me at a faster pace than I actually walk. It's very surreal— very dreamlike. My depth perception must be off as well because as I try to climb his front steps I catch my toe on the very first one and fall into the back of him.

"Whoa, you alright?" Peeta says, as I cling to the back of his coat to right myself.

"Fine... clumsy..." I mutter embarrassed, as I focus hard on making it up the next three steps while clinging to the handrail. Peeta tries to take my hand as I make it to the door, but I pull away, giving him a defiant look. He only gives a small chuckle as he backs further into the room to let me pass.

I make it inside to his kitchen and move to lean against the counter for support. Large jars of ingredients are already sitting out along the length of the countertop, presumably from the fresh bread he baked that morning. There's a large floured breadboard waiting beside the sink and an entire box of spices sitting beside the window.

Before I realize what I'm doing, I've crossed the room and started opening spices so I can look at them and smell them. These tiny bottles remind me so much of my family. My mother and sister with all of their herbs for healing, my father with his extensive knowledge of all of the edible wildlife. It feels like a little piece of them here with me and it hurts. I pick up one labeled ginger and inhale deeply. Oh the memories— so many painful feelings welling up inside of me.

"My mother used to give ginger for everything. Nausea for the expecting mothers, stomach issues for the elderly, flu and colds. She used to say ginger was the miracle healer." I say absently to myself, with such a longing to see my family that it physically hurts inside my chest.

Suddenly, I look around to see Peeta watching me sadly and I realize I've said too much. I put the lid back on and move away from the box watching my feet. Peeta must have realized I'd again seen the pity on his face because he quickly steps forward.

"No, Katniss. I'm sorry. It's just that... I'm sorry your mom didn't come back to 12." I have to turn away from him as angry tears prick my eyes. I will not let him see me cry again.

"It doesn't matter. I don't want her here." I say the lie harshly over my shoulder at him, feeling a flare of anger at her that she could just leave me behind so easily. I don't look at Peeta and he doesn't reply. For a moment, he rustles through the box, clinking small glass bottles together.

"This is my favorite," he says, quickly changing the subject as he must have realized I don't want to talk about my mother abandoning me. I look around and he's holding out a bottle filled with green scraggly needles that look like tiny pine tree branches. They seem to shift and settle strangely in the bottle as I watch. I wonder momentarily if the morphling is causing odd hallucinations.

I take a whiff. The smell is very strong, almost an overwhelming woodsy aroma, but not unpleasant.

"Rosemary," he says. "It makes some of the best cheese bread or maybe this one. It's delicious in herb bread too," he says handing me another bottle to smell. I can't quite identify the new herb. It's almost a spicy-sweet pungent aroma, but it is familiar. "Oregano." Peeta says. Oh yes, my mother used to prescribe it for minor infections.

"My favorite is cinnamon," I say softly, not looking at him. For some reason the admission feels vulnerable, like I'm letting him into my mind a bit too much.

He digs through the box for a moment before pulling out a glass bottle filled half way with brown powder. We never had cinnamon growing up. It doesn't grow around here and was expensive to get shipped from the Capitol. A luxury that our starving seam family couldn't afford.

I can't help but smile sadly as I open it to take a whiff. It reminds me of the cinnamon cookies that Prim and I would gaze longingly at through the glass windows of the bakery. "We could smell your cinnamon cookies from all the way down at the butchers," I tell him quietly. Peeta pauses for a moment, staring off into the distance. I wonder vaguely if he's thinking of the bakery, or his family.

"Would you like to make some?" He says finally, taking the cinnamon back from me.

"Oh..." I say hesitantly. I had always imagined what those cookies were like, but never had been able to try them. Recollecting myself slightly, I tell him "I would like that. I've never tried them before."

Peeta looks pleased with my consent and begins busying himself collecting cups, bowls, and ingredients. He starts measuring out flour and sugar from memory.

"Here you can pour these into the bowl," he says nodding at the large white ceramic bowl beside the cups he's already measured. I pour them in as he hands me more things to put in the bowl— milk and butter and eggs. Finally he lets me measure out the cinnamon with a tiny silver spoon and pour it in.

He takes the bowl and begins stirring with a large wooden utensil. Leaning against the counter watching him, I lick the spoon of the delicious smelling cinnamon.

"Ugh!" I choke out as the cinnamon burns my tongue. "That's disgusting!" Peeta turns to look at me and realizing what I've done, starts to laugh.

"Oh, you don't want to eat it by itself," he chuckles, "It smells great, but tastes terrible."

"Eww... why would you put that in cookies?" I exclaim. "It will ruin them!"

"No, no" he says smiling. "It's delicious when mixed with everything else. Here try some of the dough," he says as he finishes stirring it. I can't help but be suspicious as he hands me a spoonful. The cinnamon was terrible. I look at the brown specked dough uncertainly, but when Peeta puts a spoonful in his own mouth and smiles I'm persuaded.

He's right. It is delicious. I could eat all of the dough raw, but Peeta insists on rolling them out and stamping them into circles to bake.

"Here," he says dumping the ball of dough onto the floured breadboard and handing me a rolling pin. "You can roll them out and I'll clean up." I try to roll the dough flat on the board but I struggle with it sticking to the pin and tearing as I pull the pin away. I can't quite tell how far away the dough is as my vision expands and contracts. I end up pressing it out paper thin in spots and thick as my thumb in others.

"Here let me help," Peeta says when he hears me grumble as the sticky dough gets stuck to the pin and tears again. I sigh agitatedly and start to move away from the dough. "No wait. I'll show you," he says, gently turning me back towards the counter.

He comes up behind me, with arms on either side of my torso and rolls the dough into a ball to retry. He dusts his hands with flour and then rubs some on the pin and the top of the dough. "There you go." He says gently, handing me the rolling pin. "Now it won't stick," I put the rolling pin into the middle of the ball and press down.

"Wait, gently," he says placing his large warm callused hands over mine to guide the pin back and forth slowly across the dough. I can feel my breath catch slightly at the unexpected touch, but I don't pull away. I don't know if it's the morphling causing me to be less inhibited or the comfort of feeling his arms around me once again, but all I want to do is lean into him as our arms follow the same gentle rolling movement. But we are friends— friends don't cuddle into each other. So I refrain and instead, I close my eyes to the rhythmic, calming strokes of the rolling pin and feel his arms flexing slightly against mine as I breathe in his baker scent.

"Okay, I think it's ready to cut out now," he says releasing my hands as I snap out of my reverie. He scoots away from me with a small smile playing across his lips as he retrieves a little metal ring. "Here just cut them out with this and I'll get a tray to bake them on."

Soon we have two dozen cookies cut out and placed around the pan. Peeta lets me have the last little spare ball of cookie dough, too small for rolling and cutting out.

I settle myself at the table and nibble slowly, savoring the sweet dough as he puts the pan into the oven and begins putting lids on all the containers spread around the counter top. He suddenly glances around at me looking confused.

"We've baked together before. Real or not real?" His eyebrows raised in question. I have to pause to think about it for a moment. Had we really never baked together in all this time? No, our entire relationship consisted of the games, the visits to the Capitol, his spell of insanity at 13, and our squad hunting down President Snow. Unless you counted our measly meals cooked over fire in the arena, we had never baked together.

"Not real," I say quietly. He gives a little nod of acknowledgement and turns back to the counter.

How much can he not remember still? Still trying to sort through his memories and determine which are real and which are fabricated. He said he sometimes has bad days. How bad? Does he turn back into the Peeta screaming that I'm a mutt? The Peeta that tried to kill me?

"Katniss?... Hey, Katniss?... Katniss, you okay?" Suddenly I realize that I'd been so lost in my thoughts and my drug haze that I wasn't hearing him. I give my head a hard shake to physically pull myself back to his kitchen. He's crouched in front of me, his hands on my shoulders, looking at me with that soul searching look.

"Uh... Fine." I say a little shaken. How long had I zoned out again? Peeta doesn't move, just watches me with concern.

"What's going on Katniss?" He says.

"Uh... It's some of the medicine from the Capitol," I finally tell him. "It makes me a bit... out of it." I don't mention that it's morphling and not just a side effect of one of my other pills. I don't mention that the haze is because I took a double dose. Peeta doesn't need to know any of that.

"Oh, alright then." He says looking relieved. "For a minute there I thought you might black out again. You look a bit pale. You sure you're fine?"

"Yep, really." I say forcing myself to get up from his table. I wander out of the kitchen just as the timer starts to sound.

"I'll grab the cookies out of the oven..." he calls as I peer around his living room. His house has the same layout as mine, only his is less dusty. He must have cleaned it up some since returning to District 12. I quietly look around. His jacket is crumpled haphazardly in a chair and there's a large coffee mug sitting on the table with a pad and pencils beside it, but very little else in the room. No pictures hang on the walls or sit on the tables. I spin in a slow circle in the middle of the room taking it all in. There's a tower of tiny boxes sitting stacked around the tv. Curious, I go to look at them. They look like tapes but as I turn one slowly in my hand I see there are no labels or pictures to indicate what's on them.

Peeta comes into the room behind me.

"We'll have to give them a little bit of time to cool. The icing would just run right..." he stops dead as he sees me holding the tapes. I look up at him and seeing his strained face, I feel embarrassed as though I've been caught snooping around his bedroom while he was out of the house.

"Sorry, I just was wondering what the tapes were." I say apologetically and he gives me a small reassuring smile.

"It's okay." He says moving to meet me at the tv. "It's just that the doctors sent those with me." He gives a little laugh that doesn't reach his eyes. "I guess neither of us wants to admit we struggle." There's a long pause as he eyes the tapes in my hands. Finally he reaches out and takes one from me. He holds it up saying "These are just clips from our games and the propos. I watch them to help remind myself what's real or if I'm having a flashback." I stand there a bit confused.

"Your telling me you rewatch our games whenever you have nightmares? That's the last thing I'd want to watch."

"Well it's not exactly our games," he says shaking his head. "It's just tiny clips. Anything that has you in it. I don't watch all the killings. Just little bits and pieces of you from the games," I raise my eyebrows at him. "Well, us..." he says quickly, his face reddening just slightly "I watch the clips of us."

I still can't imagine intentionally reliving our games everyday. All I try to do is forget them. But I knew back at 13, they had been showing Peeta clips to help him realize that the memories he thought were real had actually been altered with tracker jacker venom. I guess I understand trying to sort out the confusion. I'm just glad I'm not trying to figure out anything about the games.

"I could show you, if you'd like." He says watching me hesitantly.

"No. No, I'd rather not remember any of it." I tell him, handing back the other tape remaining in my hand. He gives an understanding nod and places it back beside the tv.

"Katniss," he says thoughtfully, "Could I ask you about the tapes sometime? Some of the stuff that doesn't make sense?" He's watching me as I shuffle my feet nervously. _Yes, as long as you don't ask about kisses or our fake relationship._

"Yeah, Peeta," I say apprehensively.

"Could I ask you something now?"

"Sure," I say shiftily.

"You lied to me to go to the feast during our first games. Real or not real?"

"Real," I say back quietly, remembering the hurt on his face just before he fell asleep in the cave from the syrup I tricked him into taking. Remembering how in that moment I thought he looked as though he'd never forgive me.

Peeta watches me thoughtfully for a moment trying to read my face as he considers my answer.

"You did it to save me. Real or not real?"

I remember how desperately I wanted to save him— as vivid as if we were sitting in the damp cave again right now, Peeta slowly dying in my arms. How heart sick I felt that I might lose him forever during those games through my clumsy, useless healing efforts. How I'd never forgive myself if I didn't try to get the medicine he desperately needed, even if it meant putting myself in harms way. I can feel a hard lump in my throat. I can't speak now for fear that my voice might crack. I just give a small nod and stare at the tiny stack of tapes.

Peeta doesn't press on. Probably sensing that I'm struggling with the memories he's already brought forward.

"Come on Katniss. Let's go see if those cookies are ready to frost." He says gently.

When I enter the kitchen, I find rows of beautiful golden cookies with tiny brown specks lined up on two small racks for cooling.

"Oh, Peeta," I say with a little sigh. "They smell amazing and they're already pretty. I don't know if I even want to frost them." Peeta smiles at my sincerity.

"Oh but they taste so much better with a little frosting." He says as he reaches around to grab a box on the far end of the counter that I hadn't noticed. Inside are more than a dozen little plastic bags filled with different colors of frosting from soft muted yellow and orange to forest green and even black.

"Why do you have all these?" I ask. Now that he isn't working in his family bakery, it seems like it is such an unnecessary hassle to make all of these colors of frosting regularly.

"I like frosting stuff. It helps calm me down and gives me focus." He says simply. I know what he means. Hunting in my woods was always my quiet moment where I focused on the bounty instead of any other worry on my mind. It was my sanctuary.

"Here you try," he says, waving me over.

"Oh I don't know Peeta. I'll just make a mess of them." I say shaking my head but Peeta only laughs.

"Well they taste just as good either way. Come on. I'll show you."

I move towards him and he gives me one of the bags.

"Okay, what do you want to make?"

I think for a moment, trying to come up with something that doesn't hurt.

At first I think of the mockingjays that my father used to sing too, but it brings back memories of Rue's song of safety just as she died, of Cinna and his fabulous winged dress, of the Jabber Jays in the clock arena mimicking Prim's agonizing screams and of the role I had to play for the past year that eventually lost me _everything_.

I think of flowers, the thing most girls would want decorated onto a cookie, but everything I can come up with is too painful. Primroses—my sister, Roses—President Snow, Rue— my dead ally.

Animals, like deer or rabbits or squirrels, just remind me that I can no longer hunt because of the shaking in my hands. I have lost such an essential part of who I was before and during the war.

"Katniss?... You still with me Katniss?" Peeta's grip on my arm is tight as I come back out of my trance for a second time.

"Ummm..." I've lost my train of thought entirely. "What?"

"I was just asking what you'd like to put on your cookie." Peeta says watching me with an uneasy look.

"I... uh... I don't... I'm not sure..." and I can feel my heart racing as the memories come seeping in. I try to control my breathing while the panic overtakes me. I should have taken more pills. The two aren't cutting it.

"Maybe fruit, like apples or a bunch of grapes," Peeta says watching me, "Or the sky. We could do the night sky and the day. Or I could show you how to write letters." He pauses still watching me.

"Do you need to sit, Katniss?"

"No, I'm fine." I'm not sure why I keep telling him this. I'm obviously not fine. But I can't stand the apprehensive look he keeps watching me with. As though I will break down and lose my mind at any moment. "The sky. I want to do the sky." I tell him as I start to get my heart rate back under control. He smiles a half- hearted smile before turning back to the cookies.

"Okay here. You take the black and cover the cookie and then you can use the white or yellow to do a moon and stars." He says handing me the black bag of frosting.

I take it from him and carefully begin covering the cookie, but soon I find that the more I try to hold my hands steady, the worse they shake. I try to do a small crescent moon in the soft yellow, but it ends up a squiggly worm running from top to bottom of my cookie. I'm getting frustrated and I'm about ready to throw my ugly cookie across the room.

But, Peeta, who has still been watching me intently, sees me struggling and comes once again to help.

"Here," he says from behind me, gently taking my shaking hands into his warm steady ones. He gets a new cookie and we try again with gentle steady motion.

He doesn't comment on my hands trembling beneath his, but he doesn't let go. His warm body pressed against my back, his hands gently squeezing mine as he gracefully guides our movements.

I don't understand how his hands can be so stable. How he can design with such smooth perfection even while supporting my tremors. I remember when he was rescued from the torture at the Capitol, how his hands shook constantly.

"How did you get your hands to stop shaking?" I ask and then instantly regret the vulnerable question as my hands continue to quiver beneath his. His arms flex suddenly, and his chest tightens against my back as though giving me a hug in mid-air.

"Time," he says simply. "And focusing on something I loved to do. Decorating cakes definitely helped. I just kept trying until one day it wasn't a splotchy mess anymore."

I'm not sure how long we stay like this, but I never want to let go. His strong arms guiding me as he shows me his awe-inspiring talent. I feel like I'm seeing a different side of Peeta that I haven't seen before as he gazes so intently, so patiently, at his work. Every movement precise. Every detail exact.

We do deep night skies with shimmering stars, glowing golden suns with cloudless blue skies, grey overcast clouds embellished with tiny raindrops, blue skies with white fluffy clouds, soft faded rainbows, and my favorite— an amazing sunset of pink and orange and purple. They're simple designs, but through Peeta's expert touch they are extraordinary.

"They're amazing," I whisper as Peeta does the final touches to the raindrops. "Much too pretty to eat." Peeta laughs.

"Well of course we are going to eat them. You wouldn't waste something you worked this hard on would you?" I smile. He finally releases me and I no longer fill grounded, as though Peeta was the only thing keeping me from floating away.

Peeta offers to show me his paintings or take me to the woods to hunt, but I decline. I've already over done it. I can tell by the way my shaking is no longer just my hands. It has moved up my arms and into my entire body.

Peeta packs me a little box full of cookies to take home with me.

"Can I walk you back over?" He asks.

"Peeta I only live two houses down. I think I can find it." I tease. "Thank you for... today." I tell him once again not meeting his eyes. I hope he can tell how genuine I am even if I don't have the right words. "It's been nice." And with that I head out the door, back to my empty house. Back to my reality that escaped from for a few hours. Back to my last two morphling pills.

* * *

**So there you have it! A moment of feel good Everlark. The calm before the storm. **

**If you have just a moment, leave me a review! It makes my day and really encourages me to keep pursuing this story! **


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